Theaetetus:[www.fastcodesign.com image 685x500]If those were all hot-swappable drives/accessory modules in a dock, I think that'd be really slick.

I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that? Even a video card would be a breeze, not hot-swappable, of course(Unless it had onboard video just for swaps), but you power down, open the enclosure and swap cards. It would be faster than now.

I'd be interested in an updated version of this design. Modular is cool....

Mikey1969:Theaetetus: [www.fastcodesign.com image 685x500]If those were all hot-swappable drives/accessory modules in a dock, I think that'd be really slick.

I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that? Even a video card would be a breeze, not hot-swappable, of course(Unless it had onboard video just for swaps), but you power down, open the enclosure and swap cards. It would be faster than now.

You could still potentially do hot-swappable with a video card (mind you, not with the 1984 tech they were using), just understanding that you're headless for the short time it's disconnected. You can hot-plug external USB and Thunderbolt GPUs.

Tr0mBoNe:That's a pretty good article on Design Engineering and project management. The slideshow is the worst thing I've seen since subbys mom tried to wear spandex.

Yeah screw the pics, the article is chock full of knowledge from a DE stand point that is fantastic. Especially the discussions on why designs failed. So many casual articles are about why something is awesome, typically you have to turn to text books and the like to get a run down on how to turn failures into wins.

Mikey1969:I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that?

TI did exactly that with the TI-99/4 peripheral expansion box. The device drivers were held in firmware in the expansion module itself so when they were connected they immediately became available to any software that needed it. This is 1979 btw.

dameron:Mikey1969: I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that?

TI did exactly that with the TI-99/4 peripheral expansion box. The device drivers were held in firmware in the expansion module itself so when they were connected they immediately became available to any software that needed it. This is 1979 btw.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 688x412]

Which were just a consumer level of the VME architecture made for the space program and the american military. It doesn't explain why the same TI-86 calculators still cost 50 bucks.

Theaetetus:Mikey1969: Theaetetus: [www.fastcodesign.com image 685x500]If those were all hot-swappable drives/accessory modules in a dock, I think that'd be really slick.

I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that? Even a video card would be a breeze, not hot-swappable, of course(Unless it had onboard video just for swaps), but you power down, open the enclosure and swap cards. It would be faster than now.

You could still potentially do hot-swappable with a video card (mind you, not with the 1984 tech they were using), just understanding that you're headless for the short time it's disconnected. You can hot-plug external USB and Thunderbolt GPUs.

I bet with a little spacing, operating temps would be nothing.

Then again the tradeoff is that we have PC motherboards that are compatible with a wide array of parts. Something like this might have a screwy proprietary motherboard or take special low-profile RAM, something like that. It would still be sweet though. I'm sure with work and expansion cards, someone could build a custom one for themselves. I would just end up throwing shiat across the room at some point, but someone could do it...

dameron:Mikey1969: I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that?

TI did exactly that with the TI-99/4 peripheral expansion box. The device drivers were held in firmware in the expansion module itself so when they were connected they immediately became available to any software that needed it. This is 1979 btw.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 688x412]

This totally makes sense in that application(At least the NASA part the other poster was talking about), in any lind of industrial or scientific application, component swapping(Even if not hot swap) should be as modular as possible.

Also, a system like this could easily expanded to be a home automation/multiroom DVR type of setup.

Normally Apple can eat a dick as far as I'm concerned, but this one could have had potential. As for TI, what do they make besides calculators anymore? I honestly can't think of what I've seen their name on.

Mikey1969:dameron: Mikey1969: I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that?

TI did exactly that with the TI-99/4 peripheral expansion box. The device drivers were held in firmware in the expansion module itself so when they were connected they immediately became available to any software that needed it. This is 1979 btw.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 688x412]

This totally makes sense in that application(At least the NASA part the other poster was talking about), in any lind of industrial or scientific application, component swapping(Even if not hot swap) should be as modular as possible.

Also, a system like this could easily expanded to be a home automation/multiroom DVR type of setup.

Normally Apple can eat a dick as far as I'm concerned, but this one could have had potential. As for TI, what do they make besides calculators anymore? I honestly can't think of what I've seen their name on.

They do a lot of system on a chip stuff. You wouldn't see their name unless you pop open some other device and look at the ICs.

That makes sense. I knew they were still in business, just not what they were making, I knew about the chips of course, just not that they were pretty much ONLY making those. Pretty nice way to stay in business...

That makes sense. I knew they were still in business, just not what they were making, I knew about the chips of course, just not that they were pretty much ONLY making those. Pretty nice way to stay in business...

From Wiki: After the acquisition of National Semiconductor in 2011, the company has a combined portfolio of nearly 45,000 analog products and customer design tools,[8] making it the world's largest maker of analog technology components. In 2011, Texas Instruments ranked 175 in the Fortune 500. TI is made up of two main divisions: Semiconductors (SC) and Educational Technology (ET) of which Semiconductor products account for approximately 96% of TI's revenue.

Sort of like how 3M doesn't make the products you buy, it makes the products you buy better. It's funny that we think of them only for their calculators, when that is less than 4% of what the company does. Then again, lots of people would assume that IBM doesn't do anything these days, since they divested of making PCs.

Mikey1969:Theaetetus: [www.fastcodesign.com image 685x500]If those were all hot-swappable drives/accessory modules in a dock, I think that'd be really slick.

I was thinking the same thing. That's a design I would be interested in seeing nowdays. How cool would it be if every board on the computer had an enclosure like that? Even a video card would be a breeze, not hot-swappable, of course(Unless it had onboard video just for swaps), but you power down, open the enclosure and swap cards. It would be faster than now.

I'd be interested in an updated version of this design. Modular is cool....

The modular design is lovely. Did you notice that one of the modules was an Apple II? The world would have looked very different had things gone this direction: "Bob, check out the Atari module I got for my Mac!" "Meh. I've got both the Amiga and the CoCo modules." If they could have run in parallel, with simple screen switching or something like DesqView (gotta think of what could be done back in the day). That would have been cool. Expensive as can be, but cool.